Harbor commissioners approve EIR for marine research center at Port of Los Angels

A marine research center is one step closer to being built at the Port of Los Angeles after the Harbor Commission moved Thursday to certify the final environmental impact report.

The 28-acre campus on the port's oldest municipal pier would be used by the Southern California Marine Institute, a consortium that includes Occidental College, the USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies and the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences. The campus also would eventually include a business park for marine-related companies and a five-story seawater wave tank, port officials said.

The project now enters the funding and development phase. Port officials estimate the project will be built in two phases and cost more than $400 million, raised from private funds. A board of trustees will be formed to oversee the project, port spokesman Phillip Sanfield said.

Daniel J. Pondella II, director of the Marine Institute, said the consortium needs a new facility. It will be the key part of the first phase of the project, he said.

"The current one we are in is essentially obsolete," he said. "It was old when I was student and that was 25 years ago. It's not optimal for the work that we are doing.